ExpertDabbler

I have done two trips down south in my car in the last two months. In the first trip I went right up to Tirunelveli and returned back. The second trip happened over the last weekend - made a quick trip to Virudhunagar, then Madurai where my daughter had her first ‘mottai’ for Kal Azhagar before returning to Chennai.

I am sure many of the folks reading might have done more trips in their cars in this route. First the NH45, and then NH7 are awesome roads. The toll cost me about 400 bucks one way for Tirunelveli but i would gladly pay for such roads. It has made driving very simple, albeit slightly more dangerous. I say its dangerous because of the lack of speed limits in our roads. You are only limited by your vehicle’s cubic capacity and your own driving capacity. Time and again I was inching towards 100 when some Fortuner or BMW would just vanish from me as if I am stationary! Overall, great roads.

I am not a night owl, early mornings are when I am at my best. So I planned my trip so that we started rather early in the mornings and reach the destination around lunch. Having a baby and family on board means I had to stop twice. Having one’s one vehicle ensures we can stop and start at our own pace. That is a luxury I cannot appreciate enough. This also ensures my mother does not feel the journey to be as tiring as it is in a bus journey.

On the road, I was quite cautious till Villupuram. But after that the speedo was frequently touching 100 Kmh and the speed alert kept beeping quite regularly. The Punto is considered to be one of the best handling car in its segment in the country in the highway. I would endorse that. The car is absolutely rooted when taking corners at 100 kmph. The only other car I have driven in long distance was Maruti 800 several years ago so my comparison is not proper, but nevertheless Punto was awesome in the highway.

In terms of strain, the second trip was definitely more tiring - I traveled and returned to Chennai almost back to back in two days flat. Plus I did not get to sleep well on both the nights. I had to rely on extra doses of Coffee and Red Bull to stay alert. All is well that ends well. My wife considers my driving to be very smooth and controlled.

Coming to the expenses, with 3 people on board, and a baby and all the paraphernalia that is associated with a baby, I would say the car is not expensive at all. It took me 35 litres of Petrol for the trip upto Virudhunagar - thats 2500 bucks approximately. It would have costed me Rs. 700 a ticket in a Volvo bus, and about the same for a third AC train ticket. I like to drive long distances in good roads so the pleasure is mine. Plus I can stop anywhere i want which is not the case with Public transport. Besides all this, the sheer logistics involved in going from my place to Koyambedu/Perungulathur is no small matter. Bottom line, car travel with 3/4 people and a baby is not very expensive considering today’s transportation costs. Of course it would have been a lot less expensive with diesel but a diesel car in the seconds market costs about 1.5 lakhs more than the petrol one of the same make - which is not something to my liking. Nor do I like the idea of taking a loan and keep repaying it for few years for car which loses its value overtime.

Bottom line, car driving for long distances is fun and made me a very happy man. I keep bragging about my trips to my friends. My mother who strongly resisted the car travel in first trip suggested we take the car for the second trip. I am already fantasizing about my next trip.

Nowadays I commute to work in my car. What this implies is, apart from the obvious privileges of AC, and safety, I also get to listen to local FM. Every second minute I listen to one FM ad or the other asking me to buy on Akshaya Thrithiyai, the interesting thing is its not limited to Gold anymore - Rathna Fan House want me to buy ACs and fans, some dubakoor real estate builder want me to book an apartment, and one amusing ad where Mr. kazhiyur Narayanan or whoever compares milk, milk payasam and platinum ( some combo that ) because they are all white and ‘permanent’ by some logic, so buying those that day will give life long prosperity.

While I really wish this madness stops one day, I fear in our country this madness will merely be replaced by another. We are a country full of mad men and women after all.

It is exactly one week since i left Chennai. What have i been doing the last one week? THose who are in my facebook friends list know anyway. For the rest, i flew lying down (what i call ‘Sleeper Class’) in Emirates; spent a day in Houston,TX in my friend’s place and attending meetings in Austin. Evenings are spent trying out stuff in the kitchen. i thought i made a decent ‘kothumalli chutney’ the other day. I also figured Bhav bajji masala goes quite well with the perennial favorite Dosai.

I keep hearing that Austin is the live music capital of the world, and this is the best time to visit Austin downtown etc. So far it has been Hotel-Office-Hotel routine. Not sure if the routine will change for music for two reasons.

- I do not have a car, and a prisoner is one who does not have a car in the U.S. Even beggars go begging on a car i suppose.
- I am not comfortable to venture out alone in the evenings without a car. My office colleague complained that one girl who went on an evening walk near her house was raped. The apartment house nearby my friend’s in Houston, which looked like the equivalent of Chennai Boat club area had a house break-in, and a car theft immediately the day after i left. My friend says this is the third robbery in the apartment this month alone. This place is deceptive in how it presents itself.

Right now i am happy with Zanyln Dosa Batter, Sree Krishna Sweets Rasam paste, Priya Rice Sevai, etc

For dummies, PSK stands for Passport Service Kendras. Yes, that is where we have to go to get our passports issued, re-issued,etc. today I went to the PSK in Nelson Manickam road in my car. First mistake. Parking the car took almost the same time as driving there from my place.

My god, I know this country lacks so many things, but definitely either the government should ban cars ( mine included what the hell ) or get more public parking spaces. It is absolutely insane to let hundreds of new cars hit the road every day, and let them park/U-turn their way to glory in our 30 feet roads. The traffic police has gone crazy. I can’t imagine Anna Nagar Second Avenue is a one way! I was stunned when I found NO LEFT TURN boards all over.
What’s next? How about making ECR one way till PONDY? ECR? Yeah you can go to PONDY and you can take the GST to come back! What an idea! I think Chennai/TamilNadu traffic police will try that in 2012.

Eventually I parked my car in Shanthi colony Anna Nagar, and took an auto to the venue.

I have to say a thing or two about the venue and ambience. Very top class. I mean I was prepared for this based on feedback but the systems and processes, considering the sheer number of applicants they handle in a day, is brilliant. Kudos to the team.

One has to go through a 4 step process
A - enquiry,
B- document verification and submitting the information along with finger prints, photographs by a customer service executive,
C- verification by an RPO person,
D - granting by a higher ranked granting officer.

There are 4 counters for step A, 16 counters for step B, 4 for C, and 3 for D.

Things went well till step B for me, or so I thought before someone realized I did not have ‘ECNR’ stamped. Well, in good old days, one needed a degree certificate to get the coveted ECNR stamp, and I, at that point in time did not have my degree certificate in hand.
Eventually they put me on hold and asked me to bring the certificates later in the day.
The CSE who handled my case was quite rude and her work (i found later) was shabby. She behaved as if she was granting me the passport. I even made a point to note her name to give scathing feedback.

Since time was at a premium, landed in Anna Nagar real quick, had a samosa or two in Shree Mithai, and started my onward journey. That was an unusual breakfast to say the least.
Now, since I am in alien territory, I had asked my colleague on the best route to take while coming back. This person apparently had a score to settle, so he said, ‘ PK, 100 feet road should be relatively clear by 11.30 AM, perhaps you should take that’. For the next 45 minutes, I was in a jaanavasam oorvalam till I reached Kathipara.

I reached home in an hour and 15 mins., had a quick meal and kicked off my phase 2 journey. This time, surprisingly I could move to 3rd and fourth gears in 100 feet road. I reached the venue and was politely told,’ Buy a car if you want to, but go to hell for parking it’. This time I found a spot much closer - one of the by-lanes in Nm road. Read first para. God alone knows who had cursed me what.
I parked the vehicle, and grabbed a share auto to the venue. Since share autos own all the roads, they find it easy in chennai roads.

Once I reached the venue, I realized how relaxed the morning crowd was. This time the place resembled a ration shop distributing Krishna oil. But kudos to the staff, they managed the crowd really well.
They took 30 minutes to locate my file but after that things were smooth.
The CSE who handled me this time was quick and efficient. I was out of the place in about 2 hours.

Area of improvement. Well the pain point happens much before - in the PSK website. One bureaucrat, had got himself a room in walltax road near Central station and had spent considerable time to inflict maximum pain with minimum fuss. The solution? The ‘manage appointment’ link works only from 3.45 PM till the daily quota of appointments are booked - which is perhaps till 4 PM if you are lucky. If you thought IRCTC servers are slow. You should try this. I mean, you should really really try this. I cannot stress this enough. I tried for one week and 40 times before my wife booked this appointment. Well, If you don’t get it? Simple: try harder the next day!

This website is practically useless if I can’t book my appointment all through out the day.
If I cannot get the slot today, why not tomorrow, next week,next month? Why should there be a mad rush to book slots everyday? The net result is, one who could’ve booked in 3 minutes is
forced to spend hours on this site. plus there are brokers who make lot of money by assisting this. ( I was asked Rs. 600 just to book an appointment by one guy).

Overall: PSK is great. I hear passports are delivered real quick, which is awesome. kudos to TCS.

But their website SUCKS ( font size:72 font weight: BOLD ) big time.

After many sleepless nights pouring over reviews in team-bhp, analyzing what I have in my bank balance and what I can borrow, and searching the classifieds in sulekha, gaadi.com , and car wale, I ended up buying a 2010 Grande Punto 1.2 Active last Thursday. All the searching and reading for 1 year got over in 30 mins. I saw the car, gave the advance and informed folks at home, finished the settlement in 3 days.

Thanks to Ferrari for initially suggesting this model! Thanks to team BHP for providing all the info one needs about cars in India! They are truly a one stop pit stop.

The car is running good till date.

Reasons for getting this one,
- Fiats apparently are famous for their build quality and ride quality. So far it has been a great experience. Unlike other cars which are built like plastic spoons, this one seems to be a true solid.
- very low Kms done and well maintained.
- the seller was a nice person, and had the entire service history and purchase history documented so I can see there has been no dagalti done.
- I do not see doing more than 1000kms per month in this car, so the price differential between petrol and diesel is not sufficient to pull me towards diesel
- the price was something I can manage with my own/personal borrowings and do not need a car loan.
- I did not have to spend on audio systems etc (he already had Alpine which my friend Vikram, who runs a portal called motorheader.com says is a decent brand)
- I am driving after 13 years and my wife has got her driver’s licence last month, so a pre-owned car made more sense than a brand new one. We have a long way to go!

There are a few concerns with TATA- FIATs A.S.S. but I guess I can manage that risk. Let us see!

Recently, I went to meet a doctor for a health condition. The doctor suspected some infection and prescribed anti-biotics. Moreover, he wanted me to support Glaxo over Mankind Pharma. Now in case you are wondering. The doctor figured I am a rich guy and so I, should support big drug companies which spend millions of dollars in R and D and take doctors to exotic locations for their paid vacations over drug companies who copy the medicine formulas after the patent expiry. Yes, the doctor prescribed Augmentin 625, the chemical name of which is Amoxycillin-Clavulanic Acid. Each tablet costs about 40 Rs. I was asked to take a course of 10. On the other hand, there is a generic pharma company called Mankind Pharma which manufactures the same drug and calls it Ramaswamy aka MOXIKIND-CV 625 instead of Kuppuswamy aka Augmentin, and interestingly offers the tablet for 15 Rs. It is not as if Moxikind is manufactured by Selvasingh annachi kadai in Medavakkam. Mankind is also a recognized pharma company.
I buy the medicines and came home happy, only to find Thangamani fuming.

She thinks the doc took me for a ride by prescribing a more expensive brand when there are cheaper but as effective options available. Thangamani and her ‘pal’ doctor colleagues always prescribe Ramaswamy (the Mankind pharma brand) and apparently it’s as effective and evidently costs 25 Rs. less per tablet.

Interestingly for the other anti-biotic, the doc prescribes the generic ‘metrodinazole’ when the popular brand is Flagyl. Why? This one costs 7 Rs. for 9 tablets. No wonder he did not care what I bought, my wife says.
How do I know Augmentin is a brand name for Amoxycillin-Clavulanic Acid tablets and the same thing can also be called Ramaswamy by Mankind Pharma and it would cost less?

On hearing this, my mom started how I always paid more to fruit vendors, vegetable vendors, auto drivers, etc. - Somehow they all figured I am one sucker and this doctor is the latest is mom’s theory.
My friends told me I would’ve mentioned something which made the doc feel ‘Oh here’s one more jobless IT guy who had searched endlessly on the net for the symptoms and conditions’ and so charged a 100 bucks more for consultation and a few more on medicines.

All said and done, I have recovered from my condition, and I am happy that I contribute my bit to the economy, keep the medical fraternity in good humour, and support big pharma. More paid vacations to the doctors!

One thing that has happened in 2011 is that a bulk of my reading material has gone digital. The books are synched and retrieved whenever I want. The kindles, dropboxes, boxes and safari oreilly subscriptions not to mention the veritable ebookee has helped me build a decent library. And My iPad (one wise buy in 2010) facilitates easy access to this collection.

For the kind of reading I do, the productive output from me is not what I am happy about.
The only explanations I give myself is that the benefits of reading should be considered not only in terms of what I do, but also in terms of what I avoid doing. Reading helps me avoid kodambakkam cinema ( now that I am staying away I think the 95% of Tamil Nadu is obsessed with it), unhealthy friendships, and not least of all more unhealthy habits.

Looking back in 2011:
My daughter’s arrival is the highlight of 2011. Moving to the new and bigger home was another good thing. I took better control of my finances, which can never hurt.

I do not remember the last movie I saw in sathyam on my own. I had very few restaurant outings, and fewer window shopping opportunities in Landmark.

On the other hand, GMAT was a debacle. I scored what I scored in the GMATprep - 590. So much so I forgot to even blog about it. Failure to get a car was another. My exercise regimen has taken a beating.

I will becompleting 5 years in my job next month and I don’t even know if that is a good thing

I would like to think more good things can happen if I focus more on act based on what I know.
Hopefully 2012 will see me finish some of the unfinished agenda.

Wishing you a happy 2012!

P -> probability.
And I hasten to add I don’t understand much
http://www.thoughtleaderforum.com/957443.pdf

Hm. The Maayan calendar apparently stops On Dec 21, 2012. We should ask Maayan to print properly for 2013.

Do very close friends necessarily make great co-workers on a project? I’d say not necessarily.

It is one thing to talk for hours together with a friend about all the things under the roof while having dinner. But it’s quite another when the friend tries to talk as if he is Jack Welch and you are one Ramarajan.

In theory it is very easy to say no to such situations. But then in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is

There are friends who would make dream partners and co-workers, along with some who are an absolute nightmare.